Definition
Adaptive radiation can be defined as a type of evolutionary process in which organisms show diversification in physical and anatomical structure from their ancestral species for better adaptations to the changing environment (Schluter 2000).
Introduction
According to Charles Darwin’s book Origin of Species, various processes have played an important role in the evolution of spectacular biological diversity on Earth. Among all, adaptive radiation has been considered as the most crucial factor for maintaining this diversity. It is comprised of two main features: speciation (formation of new species driven by certain ecological conditions) and phenotypic adaptation resulting in the emergence of an array of new species showing distinct morphological and physiological characters. This phenomenon was first put forward by Darwin during his voyage to the Galápagos Islands (Grant 1999) and relies on the...
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Singh, D., Ghosh, P., Singh, A.K. (2019). Adaptive Radiation. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_411-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_411-1
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